Shimla: Ahead of the assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, industry lobby Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Tuesday asked political parties to commit to framing a new industrial policy and forming a state investment promotion corporation.

It also called for improving inter- and intra-state road connectivity."The measures reflect the aspirations to move the state up on the growth curve based on the tenets of growth with distributive justice," CII chairman (Himachal) C.N. Dhar said in a statement.

He said there is need for the formation of the investment promotion corporation for policy formulation, market intelligence and marketing the state as an investment destination.

"There should be a thrust on IT and electronics hardware manufacturing clusters. A new industrial policy to spur investments, promote entrepreneurship and job creation is required," he said.

Food processing and supply chain infrastructure should also be strengthened, he added. Officials of the industries department said there is scope for large-scale production of fruit-based value-added products in the state.

The hill state saw investment worth Rs.12,560 crore in medium and small industrial units in the past four years.